Ginger, the Magic Pungent Spice for the Treatment of Muscle Pain

By Kyle J. Norton

Scientists may have found a natural ingredient for the treatment of muscle pain with no side effects, according to study.

Muscle pain is the condition of pain originated from the muscle. Muscle pain may be caused by injury or overexertion, infections of soft tissues, or inflammatory conditions.

Systemic muscle pain is the pain throughout the body, often induced by an infection, an illness or a side effect of long-term intake of certain medication, such as cholesterol medications.

There are many risk factors associated with muscle pain, including
1. Physical activity (PA) that requires the intensity, duration, and repetitiveness of muscular activity.

2. Occupations often involved static load, repetitive movements, and high peak forces, occurring for the prolonged duration are also some risk factors that causally relate to muscle pain development.

3. Overtraining in physical exercise.

Most muscle pains can be treated with over counter painkillers. If you are currently taking them for the treatment of muscle pain, please make sure you know all the side effects for preventive measure.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) or ginger root, the second superfood used for thousands of years by mankind, is the genus Zingiber, belonging to the family Zingiberaceae, native to Tamil.

The root has been used in traditional and Chinese medicine for the treatment of dyspepsia, gastroparesis, constipation, edema, difficult urination, colic, etc.

Researchers on finding a natural compound for the treatment of muscle pain quickly examined the effects of 11 days of raw (study 1) and heat-treated (study 2) ginger supplementation on muscle pain.

Study 1 and 2 were identical double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized experiments with 34 and 40 volunteers, respectively

Also, participants consumed 2 grams of either raw (study 1) or heated (study 2) ginger or placebo for 11 consecutive days and participants performed 18 eccentric actions of the elbow flexors to induce pain and inflammation.

According to the assays, ginger showed a significant pain reduction in 24 hours after eccentric exercise compared to placebo.

There was no significant difference between both types of ginger and placebo on other measures.

Daily supplementation with ginger reduced muscle pain caused by eccentric exercise, and this effect was not enhanced by heat treating the ginger.

Dr. and colleagues wrote, "daily consumption of raw and heat-treated ginger resulted in moderate-to-large reductions in muscle pain following exercise-induced muscle injury".

In order to reveal additional information about ginger in treating muscle pain, researchers evaluated the acute effects of ginger on muscle pain, inflammation, and dysfunction induced by eccentric exercise.

The double-blind, cross-over design, included 27 participants performed 24 eccentric actions of the non-dominant elbow flexors and ingested a 2 g dose of ginger or placebo 24 h and 48 h after exercise.

Before ginger treatment, eccentric exercise caused moderate arm pain (39 ± 20 mm; mean ± SD) and dysfunction (14% decrease in ROM) and an increase in volume (1.8%).

Ginger consumption demonstrated no effect on muscle pain, dysfunction, or metabolic rate compared with placebo before 24 hours.

However, after 24 hours, arm pain was reduced (13%, -5.9 ± 8.8 mm) the following day, 48 h after exercise.

Based on the finding, researchers said, "a single 2 g dose of ginger does not attenuate eccentric exercise-induced muscle pain, inflammation or dysfunction 45 min after ingestion. However, ginger may attenuate the day-to-day progression of muscle pain".

Take all together, ginger may be considered a functional alternative for the treatment of muscle pain after 24 hours, pending to the confirmation of large sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Ginger (Zingiber officinale) reduces muscle pain caused by eccentric exercise by Black CD1, Herring MP, Hurley DJ, O'Connor PJ. (PubMed)
(2) Acute effects of dietary ginger on muscle pain induced by eccentric exercise by Black CD1, O'Connor PJ. (PubMed)
(3) Physical Activity as Cause and Cure of Muscular Pain: Evidence of Underlying Mechanisms by Karen Søgaard and Gisela Sjøgaard. (PMC)